George Clooney
Film Friday
I’ve spent many hours talking about film with my friend Jim Bershon, a retired dentist who loves movies. When my life became too busy a couple of years ago, Jim took over a monthly film series at a local senior center that I had started. He sent along the following introduction to his George Clooney film series.
I remember seeing a preview of Clooney in Michael Clayton and of being, just in those few seconds, struck dumb by his screen presence. No actor since Humphrey Bogart, I felt, so commanded the screen. Jim, as you’ll see below, sees Clooney as a cross between Clark Gable and Cary Grant, combining an urbane sophistication, a smoldering sexuality, and (when called for) a deft comic touch.
In O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the film that Jim focuses on here, we are riveted by the arrogant, self-involved, but ultimately magnetic hero. For those who know Homer’s work, there are added pleasures. Teiresias shows up as a blind railway worker. John Goodman is a Cyclops, and three seductive women are a combination of Circe, who transforms men into animals, and the Sirens. (Both threaten to sidetrack mariners from their journey home.) At the end, as in the epic, Odysseus must make one last journey before the story can come to its conclusion. Colorful though the other characters are, Odysseus towers over everyone, and Jim points out how George Clooney has the screen presence to do him justice.
By Jim Bershon
George Clooney is one of the best actors of his generation, a movie star in the tradition of past matinee idols like Clark Gable, Errol Flynn and Cary Grant. He has a compelling screen presence or magnetism. By that I mean, when he is on the screen, the audience is completely absorbed by his performance. He is also a talented screen writer, director and producer. Even though he is still in the middle of his film career, there is a substantial body of film work behind him that we can review.
I have selected three of his films to spotlight his varied talents. Tonight we will see him in his quirkiest role in Joel and Ethan Coen’s O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). Next month we will watch the 2005 drama Good Night and Good Luck that he wrote and directed about Edward R. Morrow and the McCarthy hearings in the 1950’s. The third film is the recent 2009 Up in the Air where he plays a hired hatchet man who flies around the county firing people for large corporations.
George Timothy Clooney was born in Lexington Kentucky on May 6, 1961. His father Nick Clooney was a Cincinnati, Ohio newscaster and currently the host of the AMC classic film channel. His aunt was the famous singer and actress Rosemary Clooney. With that kind of entertainment pedigree, you would think that he would follow in his relatives’ footsteps. His first love was to become a major league ballplayer, however, only he failed to make the cut for the Cincinnati Reds. He attended Northern Kentucky University without much direction. His cousin Miguel Ferrer, the
son of Jose Ferrer, got him a small part as an extra in a feature film and the die was cast. He moved to Hollywood in 1982 to try to start his career.
Clooney worked in television as a bit actor honing his skills in shows as varied as Facts of Life, Murder She Wrote, and Golden Girls. His big break occurred twelve years later when, in 1994, he was cast as the Dr. Doug Ross on the long running hospital drama ER. His good looks and deep sexy voice made him a household name and the show became an overnight success.
He eventually left the show to start his film career. His first major film role was in the 1996 sweet romantic comedy One Fine Day alongside established actor Michelle Pfeiffer. The following year he showed his ability to star as an action adventure hero when he was cast as Batman in the second of that ongoing film series.
Clooney has become a major film star who can deftly handle comedic roles like tonight’s film or two other Coen brother comedies, Intolerable Cruelty (2003) and Burn After Reading (2008). Clooney is very good in dramatic roles, as we will see next month in Good Night and Good Luck. He also had outstanding performance in the 2000 film The Perfect Storm, the 2005 Syriana, and in 2007 Michael Clayton.
He is also quite believable in action adventure performances like the 1997 Peacemaker, the 1999 Three Kings and the just released The American. There are only a few current actors that can do both drama and comedy with equal skill. Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt are probably the best examples of a Clooney contemporary. The work that Clooney has completed puts him the same company with past Hollywood greats that could excel at comedy and drama, like Cary Grant or Jack Lemon.
In addition to Good Night and Good Luck, Clooney also directed and starred in the 2008 football comedy Leatherheads. Then there is his political work. He has used his star power to call attention to the terrible situation in Darfur. For this work and other good deeds, he was awarded the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award at last month’s 2010 Emmy ceremonies.
O Brother, Where Art Thou? was released in 2000. The Coen brothers write and direct their films and are known for an off-centered quirkiness that makes for original work that is a must-see for their devoted fans. The brothers recognized that this good-looking romantic lead had another side to his character. Clooney knew of their films but at first think that comedy was his strong suit.
As the escaped convict who wants to get back to his wife, however, Clooney has given one of his funniest, and one of his best, film performances. He has proved ideal for the Coen brothers, who create imaginary worlds and characters to inhabit the different cinematic genres. Because they are true students of film, they are able to successfully embrace, parody, subvert all of these established types of films and give both their fans and movie reviewers much to think about.
Their crime films like Fargo (1996) and The Ladykillers (2004) are both dark and funny because they are populated by inept criminals. (Their crime film No County for Old Men, meanwhile,won the 2008 Academy Award for best film, director, and screenplay.) As you are about to see, their reality is charmingly out of wack.
In O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the Coens have based their story on Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey. The poem centers on the voyage of Odysseus (or Ulysses, his Roman name). Odysseus is trying to return home to his wife Penelope after the Trojan War and years in captivity. His family thinks he is dead and suitors are courting his wife. Along his journey he has many adventures with a blind prophet, the one-eyed Cyclops, the seductive Sirens, and the Whirlpool Charybdis. All of these story elements are cleverly represented in the film.
As our film opens, three men have escaped from a chain gang in Depression-era Mississippi. They are led by hyper-articulate
Odysseus Everett McGill, played by Clooney, and his two dimwitted companions (played by John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson). Their escape and pursuit by the law propels the film forward. Along the way they run into Depression era icons like the bank robber George “Baby Face” Nelson, the famous blues singer Robert Johnson (represented by the character Tommy), the Ku Klux Klan, hobos on trains, shady populous politicians, dirt poor farmers, and even the TVA. The Coen brothers have incorporated the wonderful music of the 20’ and 30’s to anchor their imaginative tale with a bit of nostalgic reality.
Rounding out the cast is Holly Hunter, who is wonderful as Everett’s wife Penney. Charles Durning is terrific as the rotund, Hugh Long type politician Pappy O’Daniel and the larger than life John Goodman as the confidence man Big John Teague. Clooney broke with his previous traditional roles as he embodies the zaniness of his character. Is he channeling the confident Clarke Gable in Gone with the Wind with the thin mustache and slicked back hair or is there the inspiration of Gary Grant’s performance in Bringing Up Baby. Watch the film and decide for yourself.